Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2020

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. McCauley, you mentioned that Treasury Board had not committed to providing that information, but I know that on May 8, when the President of the Treasury Board was here, he did ask one of his ADMs to provide that information and there was a commitment to provide that information.

I know you asked, “Would you provide that to our committee when you have it?”

I believe it was Ms. Nancy Chahwan, “Pardon me?”

You asked the question again, and she said, “Absolutely.”

Again, I don't see the reason to move forward with this motion, when there already is a commitment to provide that particular information.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think it's because, when we followed up with the deputy minister, or Mr. Purves, he danced around whether he'd actually provide it for us. This one actually has a timeline of getting back to committee for it.

Again, this is in light of Mr. Purves's refusal to commit to providing us with it. It was an “I'll get back to you on whether I'll get back to you” type of thing. This just provides certainty that we actually receive it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, you wanted to speak to this as well.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes. Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm trying to understand this a little bit. Again, I'm new to this too. I know that line 699 deals with leave with pay. I just want to get an understanding of what that information might provide and what insights my colleague is looking for. I'm trying to understand the purpose, I guess, of that request and to understand a little bit better what insights he's attempting to glean from that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley, did you want to respond to that?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes.

I find it quite ironic, on a day when we're talking about access to information.... I'm sure this is not the intent of the question, but this is the push-back we get from the bureaucrats: Why do you want this information? For what purpose do you want this information? I'm not quite sure why someone would want to hide it. I think it provides a lot of great information on COVID that can be extrapolated across the entire country—for sick day benefits that the NDP were requesting, for access to day care, for access to work from home. There are a billion things.

I think it's ironic that on the day we're talking about access to information and how difficult it is to get access to information, we're having a debate on something that's a Treasury Board directive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I would also point out, colleagues, that the motion is to ask for information from the PBO, not the Treasury Board. I offer that as clarification, since Mr. Purves had made some commitment, as had some of his officials. Mr. McCauley's motion is asking for information from the PBO.

Paul, could you please read that motion? It's a fairly brief one. Could you read it again for the benefit of all of our colleagues?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

The motion moved by Mr. McCauley reads as follows:

That, in the context of the committee’s study on the government’s response to COVID-19 pandemic, the committee request the Parliamentary Budget Officer to provide the code 699 data set that was provided to it by the government, and that the information be provided to the committee by Monday, June 29, 2020.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Are there any other speakers to this motion?

Mr. Kusmierczyk.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much.

Again, with utmost respect to my colleague, there's no push-back from my end. I know that the Treasury Board, and I believe the PBO, committed to providing that information. I'm just trying to understand the thought process behind the motion and understand how that information might yield important insights. I'm trying to understand what my colleague is hoping they might provide some important insights on or better understanding of.

Again, I hope my colleague is not misconstruing my intention.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Oh, no, not at all.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I simply want to better understand this. I look at the motion and I see “code 699 data”. For me, I love learning new things, I guess you could say. I just want to get a better understanding and better line of sight in terms of this information and how it might be used, or how you're hoping it might be used.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Join the geek side.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes, exactly; I'm already there.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There's a lot of stuff that can be extrapolated over the general population that we won't have direct information for, regarding the NDP's push for sick days or child care access. I think it can provide a treasure trove of stuff that we can look at as a broader society. We'll have this directly from a large dataset of 300,000 people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I would also point out, colleagues—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

—in response to Mr. Kusmierczyk's and Mr. Drouin's questioning, Mr. McCauley's motion does have a deadline on it. The commitments made by others who have appeared were not subject to any kind of a deadline.

I think one critical point is that Mr. McCauley has June 29 as a response date.

Mr. Drouin, I see your hand up again.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm taking up a lot of time. Sorry.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'll make one last comment, and I would hope that the information Mr. McCauley is asking for on National Public Service Week will not be used to point the finger at our hard-working public servants. At the end of the day, I hope that's not the intent of the reasoning of code 699.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

No, we'll have a great dataset right in front of us. I'm sure we can extrapolate across the entire society right now to give us a great idea of what percentage don't have child care. With a dataset of 300,000, I think it's a great way to have a broader look at sick-day needs, day care needs and work-at-home needs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, I see no other hands raised, so we'll have the vote.

(Motion negatived: 6 nays; 4 yeas)

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We will go back to questioning of our witnesses.

Mr. Drouin, I have you up for five minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will ask my questions to Mr. Holman.

Do you have conversations with folks who specialize in security software? The reason I ask is that the Information Commissioner was before us—I'm sure you listened to the testimony—and she said that the access to information software is on a secure network. I don't know. I'm not a specialist in that, but would there be a reason as to why, in your opinion, the government would put ATIP software on a secure network? Is there a potential for a lot of hacks?

The Government of Canada sure has had its fair share of hacks over the past 10 or 20 years. Is that a concern that you've heard out there in speaking with others?

[Sean Holman]

It's certainly not a concern I've heard. I speak mostly with the journalistic community, being a former investigative journalist. That said, I can definitely see the concern. If sensitive information is being requested, information that, for example, falls under the national security exemption or exclusion, then there's a real reason why those records should be kept on a secure network.

However, I think this also points to the fact that there is a real need for the proactive disclosure of more records, more broad categories of records, so that we don't create this kind of congestion, so that we say all these kinds of information should be available to Canadians as a matter of course.